


Nine-Day Wonder

by HyperKey (Sylverstia)



Series: Chronological Order [25]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Choking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Suspense, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-03 06:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16320737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylverstia/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: Gavin doesn't want it and Nines is struggling with emotions he doesn't want or understands.The aftermath of a kiss and an unwanted relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha this took a turn ... Takes place immediately after the previous oneshot
> 
> i am running out of Nine-idioms.... D: halp!
> 
> Comments are always appreciated.

Gavin flinched violently when Cory’s head suddenly met his desk, the crash loud in the quiet precinct. He was up on his feet and round the desks, before he even realized what he was doing. The android had acted unusually all day. With the events of the previous night, Gavin wasn’t completely surprised. His brother did mention that it could have had consequences.

However, no matter what he had imagined those consequences to look like, they did not involve Cory hunched over on his desk, sounding like he choked on hair. The LED was a glaring, warning red. The horrified gasps for air weren’t missed by the others and Gavin caught a few stray gazes of his colleagues.

Of course, they thought he did something. He had asked Cory if he wanted to stay home, but the android insisted he was fine. Of course, it had been a lie. Something was definitely wrong here.

Gavin placed a hand on his partners back, leaned in. Somehow it sounded even worse now. His fingertips felt the heat underneath Cory’s dark shirt, resisted the urge to flinch back.

Overheating.

“What do I have to do?” He asked him silently, unwilling to cause a scene.

“Help me-” The android choked out, one hand finding his shirt and clutching it like a lifeline. Like he had done the previous night.

Cory’s face was hidden from sight, but his shaking frame and the continuous garbled chokes for air gave the Detective a good idea how it would have looked like.

Gavin took a deep breath to calm himself, steadied his voice. “Okay, I’m getting help.”  He explained calmly and turned around and locked eyes with Chris.

The officer nodded quickly and was already rushing out of the bullpen when Cory pulled Gavin closer. He would have snarled, he would have shouted and complained, but the strained face of his partner was enough to make Gavin completely lose interest in his usual demeanor.

Thinking back on the previous night, his brother could have rushed something. He did seem in a hurry, and whatever Gavin had called him away from had probably been important. Elijah wasn’t the type to focus on unimportant things.

The thought pained him more than he wanted to admit. After that night, something had changed between him and the android. It wasn’t just the brief moment of intimacy and unusual trust between them.

A young woman walked up to them, red hair pinned back into a lose bun, green eyes piercing and alert. Gavin knew she was Ryan’s older sister, but apart from that and her name, he had no idea about her.

Cindy. She seemed to have found a liking to Connor, and that was all Gavin knew.

“Cory, right?” She asked when she had reached the two.

Cory nodded and Gavin wanted to move away, but Cory kept gripping his shirt without any intent to let go. The woman rested a calming hand on the android’s back and pulled her black suitcase closer. Gavin found the number of stickers on it unusual. It looked like his closet doors had looked when he was a child.

“Okay Cory,” Cindy began, voice calm and gentle. “Can you turn around for me? I want to take a look at your system, okay?”

Another small nod and the android slowly moved. Gavin noted that he was breathing as if a human had just run a marathon, but it didn’t sound nearly as bad as it had just minutes before. Whatever had happened, maybe it had corrected itself.

“Did something happen to him?” Cindy then asked Gavin.

The detective shrugged and nervously rubbed his neck when Cory’s hand finally let go of his shirt and he slowly moved to face Cindy. Seeing his face completely for the first time since the whole ordeal started, Gavin felt a pang of sympathy at the sight. Cory looked positively spooked.

“We got attacked last night.” Gavin explained. “He got stabbed in the throat- My brother fixed it… said something about the voice box needing more repairs.”

Now that he thought about it, it was strange that Cory hadn’t mentioned the damaged voice box. Gavin had forgotten about it and the android hadn’t made any comment on it. While he wondered why, Cindy nodded and pulled another chair close to face Cory. The woman looked tiny in comparison, but she didn’t seem affected by that at all.

Calmly she took a cable out of her bag and connected it to her laptop. “I will attach a cable to your LED, can you hold still for five seconds?”

Cory had his arms wrapped around himself by then, his body trembling violently. But he nodded and forced himself to stay still until Cindy had inserted the cable. Her small hand lingered on his broad shoulder and Gavin felt jealous for a second.

“I can see that you’re overheating.” Cindy explained and pointed to a text passage on her laptop screen. “Your respiration system is working at 94% efficiency. That is a little low but within normal parameters.” She continued.

Gavin snarled, upset that he worried over nothing, and Cory suddenly seemed a shade paler, looked haunted.

Cindy seemed to notice and ran her hand over Cory’s back. “I can see in your log that there was a spike in efficiency and that it went down to 47% six minutes ago.” She tapped on another line of text. “I’m going to look into why this happened, okay?”

Cory nodded, slowly stood when she told him that this was better done in the small lab she and her brother shared in the precinct. It was hardly a lab in the general sense, but for lack of a spare room they had reworked a portion of the basement to be used for emergency repairs and other important things Gavin didn’t want to think about.

He followed them, suppressing the urge to shield Cory form the curious glances. He was glad Connor and Hank were out on a case. He really didn’t want them poking their noses into his business.

When they reached the small room, Gavin had the feel that Fowler had just repurposed a broom closed he didn’t know about. Cindy ordered Cory to sit down on what looked like an examination table. The android complied slowly, face decorated with a deep frown.

“Have you ever had problems with bugs, or glitches?”

“No.” Cory answered slowly, voice a tad bit tinnier than Gavin expected. “Not until last night.”

Cindy nodded to herself, gestured for Gavin to sit down and sat her laptop down on a small side table.

“I can’t see any software issues here, but that doesn’t have to mean anything.” She told the android. “Open your shirt and lie down, I’m going to take a closer look.”

Gavin watched as his partner did as told, wondered why he complied without question. He was fairly certain Connor would have protested. But Cory had never been tricked by his creators. He also was a lot less stubborn considering certain things.

When the woman turned back she had bright blue gloves on and settled a small tray of delicate looking tools next to her.

“I am going to open your chest panel, okay?”

Cory’s LED flickered red for a second, then he nodded. “Proceed.”

The woman mirrored his nod and unlocked the chest panel with what looked like a glorified screwdriver, in a matter of seconds. Gavin made a mental note to keep a close eye on what she did to his partner, but when he saw the inner workings of the androids, his mind immediately associated it with all the gutted victims he had encountered in his career.

He didn’t like that.

“You should sit down, Detective.” Cindy muttered without looking up. “Most people get quite light headed seeing this for the first time.”

Gavin scoffed and crossed his arms. “Is if I give a fuck about the prick.”

He resisted the urge to flinch when Cory’s LED flash red once more. He definitely needed to apologize for that later. Even when Cory still refused to admit it, the deviancy was affecting him in ways he didn’t even notice. Like the small micro expressions of being hurt, as he did in just that moment.

“Let him blab, he needs to compensate his small penis in his giant ego.” Cindy remarked and carefully reached into the opened space of Cory’s chest.

“Bitch.” Gavin snarled back at her.

Cindy was unfazed and calmly continued her work. “Looks like some of the thirium spill leaked into the respiration system and caused the issues. I’ll clean that up and then you’re good to go.”

“That’s all?” Gavin asked then, recovered from the insult. “There’s nothing else wrong?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know what you two do in your private time, and I don’t care but if there is anything else I should look into, tell me. Now.” Her voice had taken on a slight edge that Gavin didn’t know how to interpret.

“There was nothing of the sort, Ms. Steward.” Cory replied before Gavin could.

“Believe me, I have seen things you can’t even imagine done to androids.”

“We didn’t fucking do anything!”

Cindy chuckled silently and only then Gavin realized she had pulled his leg. “You’re such a fucking bitch!”

“Careful detective. I might have to go talk to the captain and tell him about this.”

Gavin threw his arms in the air and snarled. “I fucking hate you.”

The woman laughed silently and carefully replaced the chest plate of the android. “Wouldn’t do you any harm to drop that wall of asshole-ish behavior and be nice for once, you know?”

She smiled at Cory and gave him a form nod. The android slowly sat up and buttoned his shirt. When he stood he turned back to Cindy and nodded at her. “Thank you, Ms. Steward.”

“Anytime, sweetheart.” She smirked and winked at him, making sure Gavin saw it.

Outside the lab, Gavin was seething. “The fuck does she even think?!” he shouted into the empty stairwell.

“She was purposely ‘egging you on’, Detective.” Cory explained calmly.

Gavin scoffed and turned to his partner. “And you’re just gonna pretend you’re fine after this?”

“There was an error in the system, it has been corrected. This won’t happen again.”

The detective growled and leaned against the wall. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“There are no plans to repeat the endeavor. But there is also no guarantee that I won’t protect you again.”

“I’m a fucking cop, I can look after myself.”

Cory calmly eyed him, then focused on a spot somewhere between his eyes. “There was a 12% chance of you surviving the injury, last night. It was a risk that should not have been taken.”

“How the fuck did you know that?”

“Preconstruction.” Cory explained and Gavin thought he saw the hint of a smirk playing on the android’s lips.

“So what were your chances of survival?”

“Thirty four percent.”

Gavin flinched. His chest felt tight, suddenly. Cory had risked his life for him. “….So you went for it because you knew you had better chances? Is this some ‘I; Robot’ shit?”

The android shook his head. “As I have mentioned before, the loss of your life would cause major issues to Emma’s life.”

“…Yeah, fuck you.” Gavin hissed and turned to head back upstairs.

“Would you save _me_ , if there was ever a situation to arise in which _I_ would need saving?” Cory asked behind him and Gavin stopped.

The detective clenched his fists. “I’d follow protocol.”

The android nodded. “Understood.”

Gavin couldn’t help but feel as if he had disappointed his partner. What was his deal? Did that stupid kiss mean that much to him? Gavin had kissed so many people without any meaning behind it, it felt strange to be attached to a tin can yet again.

“…I used to have an RK300.” Gavin then finally explained. “My brother gave it to me, pretty much like he did with you. That android was killed right in front of my eyes with a stray bullet of an officer.” He turned back to Cory, now on eyelevel with him due to the step he was standing on.

“...I don’t…” he muttered, noticed Cory’s now blue LED flicker into red without the slightest hint of yellow in it. “I don’t want to get attached to another tin can, okay? It’s kinda nice having you around, but I don’t want anything intimate.”

Cory nodded, looked horrified if anything. “I apologize if my behavior has caused your discomfort. It will not happen again.”

And Gavin thought he had made the biggest mistake of his life when the android slumped down into a heap, LED dark.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hrrg here we are again.  
> I realized why this wouldn't show up in the new fics and... honestly i was pissed.  
> I put effort into it and then no one reads it.
> 
> anyway, I really love comments.  
> tell me what you thought, no matter what it was.  
> comment motivate me like nothing else :D

Gavin stood rooted to the ground, fighting against a memory that wormed itself into his might. The sight of Cory on the floor in a heap had surprised him. He had not excepted the android to suddenly fall. He had cracked his head open at one of the steps, and didn’t react to the Detective when after Gavin had lightly nudged him with his shoe.

“Cory?”

He crouched down to his partner, almost carefully gathered the android into his arms and bit back growl at the copious amounts of thirium leaking from the wound at his left temple. Carefully he tilted the android’s head, and winced at the surge of fear as it impaled his chest.

The LED was dead. It wasn’t blinking, not even in the five second interval it would when an android was in serious need of help. None of that. Angrily he checked for other signs. Cory wasn’t breathing.

The detective snarled and pressed his hear to the android’s chest. He knew from Chloe that the thirium pump was rather noisy when listened to in this way.

But there was nothing.

Not a single sound.

Gavin held his breath, listened for a few more seconds.

Still nothing.

“…Don’t fucking do this to me.” He hissed and stared at the door to the room they had just left.

“Hey! Cindy!” Gavin shouted, his own voice loud in his ears, deafening.

The woman opened the door just a second later and Gavin flinched when her eyes widened and a curse left her lips. She was at Cory’s side immediately, checking for obvious life signs, as Gavin had just done.

“What happened?” She asked while she tried to listen to the thirium pump that was eerily silent.

“I don’t know he just dropped.” Gavin growled, watched in surprise when the Woman hauled the android over her shoulder and dragged him back into the room.

The heaved him back up onto the table and reconnected the cable to his LED. “Processor is active, body is down.” She muttered, most likely to herself.

It did nothing to ease Gavin’s mind.

“What do you mean?”

“The body shut down on him. Just like that.” Cindy snapped her fingers. “Happened to Connor a few times, actually.”

“But Cory is…“

“The final release. I know.” The woman sighed. “I don’t know why this happened, but I’ll reboot the body and then we’ll see.”

Gavin slumped down on an abandoned chair and nodded. His hands were shaking and he kept forcing images away. Images of Arthur protecting him from the stray bullet, but him bleeding out in the detective’s arms.

His eyes burned with tears, but he refused to let them fall.

“I get it.” Cindy muttered silently. “The attachment to androids.”

“I’m not attached.” He scoffed at her, watched as she connected tubes and various other cables to the android. “Thought you’d just poke and prod at them all day and go home.”

She shook her head, smoothed Cory’s hair away from the wound in his head and patched it up quickly. “I have an android I am quite attached to.” She explained while she moved back to Cory’s shirt and unbuttoned it.

She had the chest plate open faster than Gavin had even realized, and wheeled the small side table back over.

“And you’re sure this can be fixed?”

“I can reboot him. I don’t know why this happened yet. Could be a glitch, a bug, a virus, a malfunction, broken or damaged biocomponents and the like.”

“Great.” Gavin crossed his arms to hide his shaking hands and fixed Cindy in a stare that he was sure was uncomfortable, but he couldn’t look away.

The young woman reached into the android’s chest. Gavin couldn’t see what she was doing from his position, but the curse that followed whatever it was, had Gavin shiver.

“What happened?”

“You ever had a fish tank?”

Gavin raised an eyebrow, then nodded. “When I was a kid. Why?”

“Ever let the pump run without water?”

The detective felt all color drain from his face. That couldn’t be true. Cindy grimaced and nodded when she saw his reaction.

“The indicator for his thirium levels glitched out. It was too low the whole time, but no one noticed because the numbers were set.”

“You mean they got stuck?”

“Yup.”

Gavin ran a hand through his face. This sounded a lot less dramatic than he had feared. But Cindy didn’t look relaxed. There was a frown on her face and huffed in frustration.

“There more wrong?”

“No, but this damaged the thirium pump. That’s why he shut down.”

“And how do we fix this?”

The woman’s short silence put Gavin back on edge. Why were things never easy?

“We don’t. The pump is busted.”

And Gavin was thrown back into horror, forcing down images of Arthur. He clenched his teeth, forced

“…And that can’t be fixed?”

Cindy shook her head. “Without the support of his system, his processor will shut down in 48 hours. I need to order a new pump but that has to be custom made. Takes two to three days.”

Gavin balled his fists.  The urge to smash the whole lab to bits was almost overwhelming. But this wasn’t Cindy’s fault. It was no one’s fault.

“Fuck!” he cursed, “Fuck!”

Cindy only nodded, her expression holding nothing of the snark she would usually have. She looked concerned, maybe even pained. “I can try to get the pump running after I filled up his thirium supply. But there is no telling if it’ll run, or for how long.”

“Do it!” Gavin yelled at her.

Cindy nodded, took out a tablet and placed an order for a new thirium pump before she returned to Cory and gently ran her hand through his hair. Gavin could definitely see that she was just as upset about it as he was. But she was silent about it.

He watched as she refilled the thirium and then had her hands in Cory’s chest yet again.

“Okay I’ll attempt to restart the pump.”

Gavin only nodded, felt light headed at the sight. After half a minute Cindy snarled. “Come on.” She gripped a tool from the table, and in seconds it was gone from sight.

“There.” She nodded to herself and Gavin closed his eyes when the LED flickered into red.

Cory’s eyes snapped open, wide, panicked and a gasp of utter terror escaped him. Cindy had her gloved hands on his bare shoulders immediately.

“Don’t move.” She ordered, voice calm but firm.

The android complied, completely still even as Cindy took her hands away. “This needs constant supervising; the pump is completely out of whack.”

Gavin only nodded at this point.

“Let’s just hope no other android needs this space today.”

“What do you mean?” Gavin frowned and stood, regretted it almost instantly when he glanced at the exposed inner workings of his partner.

“He can’t be moved like this. Any movement could cause it to stop again.”

“Fuck.” Gavin snarled and dug his phone out of his pocket. “Fuck this I’m calling my brother.”

Cindy only nodded when she stepped into Cory’s field of vision and explained the situation to him. While she was doing that, Gavin had turned around and waited for his brother to pick up the phone.

“Hello Gavin. You’ve called me more in two weeks than in two years.” Elijah greeted him after a moment.

“I need you at the station. Something’s seriously wrong with Cory and-“

“What happened?”

Gavin snarled and handed the phone to Cindy. She could definitely explain this better. He tuned out after a few moments and finally approached the android, almost forcing himself not to look at the exposed inner workings.

He pulled the chair over and sat down next to Cory’s head, mindful not to disturb any of the cables and tubes. This was different from last time. Last time he had no chance to say anything, to apologize. Arthur hadn’t been deviant. They were a strange concept still back then. Maybe it had hurt less because of that. Because the love was one sided.

And highly unusual.

Now there was so much different.

Cory’s hand twitched as if he had forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to move, and remembered it in the last second. Gavin gripped his hand tightly, ran a thumb over the back of it. What they had was fragile. Gavin didn’t want love. Not again. Not with an android.

But he also didn’t want to lose Cory. Which was a strange thought, considering how much he had hated him in the beginning. He wasn’t even sure if he liked him enough to admit this. The most unsettling part was that he looked like Connor. Although, by now, Gavin was used to that. It wasn’t much different form knowing twins.

“The system didn’t show any warnings about the thirium shortage.” Cory muttered silently after Gavin had looked at him without a word for several minutes. “Should no replacement part arrive in time, this unit will cease to function.”

A cold shiver raced down Gavin’s spine. The thought of losing Cory hurt. He clenched his teeth against the sensation and forced his expression to stay neutral. No one needed to see that he cared.

“Scared?” He scoffed, and wanted to slap himself for it. He hadn’t meant to make it sound like that.

“Emma has found a liking to this unit.”

Gavin rolled his eyes at the statement. “Just admit it for fucks sake!”

Cory opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted when Cindy placed a hand on his shoulder and handed the phone back to Gavin. “He can’t do anything either, but he said he tried to come up with a temporary solution.”

“Great.” Gavin snarled. “I’ll be upstairs getting some actual work done. Call me if you need me.”

The detective turned and headed for the door, pretended not to notice Cory’s weak attempt to grasp his shirt.

“Do you do that when human coworkers are injured?” Cindy asked him as he opened the door.

“What?”

“Upset them and then leave? Do you do that?”

Gavin growled at her and left the room, made sure to slam the door louder than necessary. He was just about to set foot onto the first step when the door opened and slammed shut again. He turned, saw a blur of red hair and the next thing he knew was painful flash of pain in his cheek.

Cindy was furious, eyes filled with tears of absolute anger. “I don’t even care if I get fired for this, Detective. You are such an insensible bastard, you deserve no better! You don’t even deserve this android!”

“Are you done now?” Gavin hissed back at her. He resisted the urge to hold his burning cheek and stared at her. “I’m going to _get_ you fired for this, you can bet on it.”

“Fine! Then I don’t need to worry about how you mistreat your colleagues and your partner anymore!”

Gavin opened his mouth to argue, but the tears spilling over her cheeks, even when she tried to suppress them, forced him to stay silent. She bit her lip to fight against the flood of tears, sniffed, gave him the finger as she turned around and retreated back to her lab, while she wiped the tears off her cheek.

Gavin stood in stunned silence for a few long moments before he was able to move again.

When he climbed up the stair case he wasn’t even angry anymore. He was disappointed, but if it was in himself or in Cindy or Cory, he had no idea.

He contemplated complaining to Fowler right away, noticed that the Office was occupied by Ben and headed back to his desk.

A he slumped back into his chair, things seem surreal. Cindy had had all right to get mad at him. Why couldn’t he just admit that he was attached to the android? Why had he said all these things to Cory and the young technician?

Cindy had been right. He knew he was an ass. But he had treated Cory in a horrible way, only because he couldn’t accept the possible loss of his partner.

“…I’m a fucking retard…” he hissed to himself and headed to the break room to get some coffee.

With plans to head back down to the Lab once that task was done, he watched as Ryan looked at his phone and ran into a table before he stormed down to where the lab was.

Mug under the machine forgotten, Gavin just raced after him, now terrified that something bad had happened.

Why couldn’t he have just stayed like any normal person would have done?!

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done.
> 
> Warning for a minor panic attack.
> 
> Wrote this after having one. haha. feelings were fresh.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!

Gavin shrank back at the sight. Ryan was restraining the android, bracing his hands on his shoulders while Cindy frantically handled tools and the like as she kept saying words that made no sense to Gavin.

Cory was trying to escape the grip, unable to muster the strength to overpower a human he could have broken like a toothpick under normal circumstances.

Head tilted back, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wide, pupils shrunken to pin heads and tears. Tears flowing without end.

So many tears.

Gavin stumbled over Ryan’s bag, discarded at the door. He managed to catch his balance and darted over to Cory. If Cindy and Ryan had noticed him, they didn’t say anything. He was at Cory’s side, one hand in his hair, the other on his cheek, head resting on the bit of his shoulder that wasn’t occupied by Ryan’s hand.

“It’s okay.” He whispered silently, only for the android to hear, unable to think about anything other than calming his partner down.

He didn’t care who saw this, couldn’t stand the thought of the android being in a state of panic. Even if he was dying, he didn’t want it to be while he was terrified of it.

“I’m here. I’m not leaving.” He promised, knew it was pointless. He would have to leave eventually, but that didn’t matter at that point. It was nonsense, but if it reached his partner that was fine.

“Breathe.” He whispered, waited for a second until he felt the android trying to comply. “Just like that. It’s okay.”

Cory was shaking violently when he stopped struggling against Ryan and the technician finally removed his hands. Gavin slowly started to trace a gentle pattern into the dark hair of his partner, tuned out the now significantly calmer sounding words of Cindy and her brother.

“You’re okay. We’re doing what we can.”

Gavin didn’t dare to stop his words. His heart was hammering against his chest and he wanted to break apart at the whole situation. His training didn’t allow him to. He had it drilled into his mind, responded automatically.

But he was terrified. The feeling wasn’t new. He had it when Arthur shut down, when Hank took three weeks off for a family emergency and when Anthony was murdered. It was a feeling of the floor tearing open underneath him and swallowing him whole.

Hopelessness, desperation.

The tears burned, but he didn’t let them fall. He was at work. He couldn’t break here. Not like this. Not like he had when Tony had been killed.

Cory tried to say something, lips quivering like his body and only wisps of shaking breaths escaped him. The continuous flow of tears had drenched Gavin’s hair, and when a sob ripped through the silence Gavin broke apart.

He bit his own lip, winced at the pain and pressed his eyes shut to suppress his own tears.

It was futile.

“I’m here.” He whispered again, voice laced with tears as he gripped into Cory’s hair. “I won’t leave you.”

Distantly he heard Cindy say that stress levels were going down, and he sagged at the news. Maybe the worst was over now. He had terrified the android. Cory was smart, he could put two and two together faster than any human could.

He sucked at recognizing faces in objects, but that was fine. It always gave Gavin something to poke fun at.

A chair was pushed behind him and a gentle tap in his shoulder told him to sit down. He hesitated, then slumped down on the furniture. He was exhausted, wanted to go him and sleep. Wished it was just a stupid dream. Something he could forget and move on from.

“I apologize for hitting you, Detective.” Cindy then said over the strange silence.

Gavin only nodded. He didn’t dare looking up and admitting that he was crying. He shaking shoulders had probably given it away anyway.

“I’m sorry too.” He muttered a little louder, voice muffled through his sleeves.

“Cory, how are you feeling?” The young woman asked.

“This unit is functioning at 68% efficiency.” Cory replied, tried to sound like he wasn’t affected by it, but his voice was shaking, back to the tinny tone it had had just after the attack.

“Cory,” Cindy began, and Gavin lifted his head when the woman was silent for a moment. She was sitting down on another chair, one arm on the table, the other running a thumb over the android’s tear stained cheeks.

“I have a little boy at home. His name is Avery. He is also an android.” She told him with a gentle smile.

Gavin wasn’t sure where she was going with that but he decided to stay silent and listen for once.

“When Avery deviated, it was fast and scary and horrifying. It was right when the revolution happened. He hid it, scared that I would turn him over to the authorities.”

Cory’s eyes focused on her now, distracted by her story. Gavin found that it was quite easy to listen to her.

“And then he was snatched by a gang of teenagers, just a few streets from here. My husband and I spent hours looking for him.”

“Did you find him?” Cory asked silently, voice steadier now.

Gavin had to admit that he was slightly impressed at this woman. She wasn’t like other technicians he had encountered.

Cindy nodded. “We found him five hours later, battered and broken, on the verge of shutdown.” She woman smiled sadly. “When he noticed me, he kept crying _‘mom, I’m sorry. I lied, I deserved this.’_.”

Gavin shivered. He hadn’t seen that many child models, but while he had found it fairly easy to be an ass towards regular androids, he couldn’t even imagine being like that to any of the child models.

“Avery never called me mom until that day. He was so scared I would hate him for deviating that he pretended to be an unfeeling machine. Exactly like you’re doing right now, Cory.”

Gavin bit down a smirk. That was what she had been aiming at.

“It’s fine to be scared. We’re used to deviants, it’s been almost a year. You can have feelings and still be you, still be efficient.” She smirked. “So, how are _you_ feeling?”

And Gavin chuckled silently when he almost missed Cory’s whispered, “Unpleasant…”

Cindy nodded and patted his shoulder. “Can’t really do anything about the thirium pump, but since it ran through _that_ we can try moving you to a more comfortable place. How would you like that?”

Instead of voicing his reply Cory only nodded and Cindy slotted cables and tubes into smaller units that seemingly could be moved around and ran on batteries. When she closed the chest panel her hands lingered on it for a second.

“Temperature is still a little high.” She noted. “Sit up slowly. Don’t jolt your body.”

Cory complied, careful and mindful not to pull on any cabled. He traced them back to their origin and figured out that all of them were there to monitor his condition. They would immediately alert Cindy if something was wrong.

It was relieving.

That was a strange sensation.

“Do not attempt to walk, understood?” The woman told him firmly.

Cory nodded once more and eyed Gavin. He assumed the emotion he had felt when Gavin had left him earlier was anger. Maybe it was also disappointment. He didn’t know that yet. But in due time he would be able to discern those emotions. He was certain.

His partner looked tired, exhausted. Eyelashes clumped together with tears and something inside him twisted. He wanted the man’s hands back in his hair. That had been comforting. It had pulled him out of the horrible loop of utter terror he had trapped himself in.

When the shorter man approached him, he wanted to recreate the kiss. He wanted to lean in, do it again.

He wasn’t supposed to want.

Remnants of a programming he had never fully explored. There had never been a need to use all of his functions, and sometimes the bothered him to the extreme. Sensors that couldn’t be shut off, automated loops he couldn’t stop.

He had to block his advanced sight with specialized glasses and noise overwhelmed him quite fast.

Was that the price he had to pay as the final model? Was the final release? While Connor was bug ridden and experienced glitches quite often, he could deliberately control most of his functions.

Cory wondered why they had revoked that in him.

“You okay?” Gavin’s voice was so soft and gently it sounded foreign out of his mouth.

The Detective carefully grasped his hands and motioned for the android to lean down towards him. When Gavin’s mouth reached his ear, he felt the soft hair on his cheek, and hand resting on his shoulder.

“I don’t know where this will go… but I’m willing to try if you are.”

Cory couldn’t find words. He had no idea either. Where would this go? What was romance? But he nodded, trusting that Gavin knew what he was doing and that he would guide him when necessary.

His affirmation was rewarded with a gentle kiss to his neck, exactly where the knife had injured him just a day before. Cory wasn’t sure if that had been intentional or not. He let it slide.

His life was still on the line, and he was well aware of that. But he assumed he was in good hands.

Cindy had proved to be capable, even in stressful situations.

Maybe he could now focus on Gavin and forget the whole ordeal at least for a moment.

It sounded like a good way to calm his stressed systems.


End file.
